by Amy Saia
His eyes swept over every line in harsh appraisal. I stepped forward. “Don’t worry; I’m not going to hurt your precious drawing.” He scanned it some more, then tossed it back up in the dresser. “Looks familiar to me.”
“Really?”
I went over to set it back up against the mirror. Seeing William again made an ache run through my limbs.
“Yeah. I don’t know why. Maybe he belongs to the church.” Jesse looked at me, eyes widened in cruel mockery. “Yeah, that’s where I’ve seen him. He’s a Soul Seeker. Oh my God, Emma, you’re in love with a Soul Seeker!”
I threw a book at his head, which he expertly dodged.
“So that’s your gentlemen, huh? The guy who’s gonna save you from everything? He’ll be so polite, asking, ‘Please, Emma’ and ‘Does that feel good, Emma?’ and ‘Have you come yet, dear Emma?’”
“Shut up already! Argh!” I grabbed a pillow and wrapped it around my head.
“And then you’ll find out he’s gay, ’cause real guys don’t act like that.” He pried the pillow away from my hands and threw it on the bed. “You need me. For whatever reason in your life, whatever comes along, I’m gonna be the guy you run to. It took you one day to pick up the phone after I’d treated you like crap. That’s pathetic. Admit it.”
“Actually, I will admit it. I’m using you like you’re using me. You want the coin, and I don’t want to be alone. We’re even. Big deal.”
“I want more than that coin. A lot more.”
I turned away and pretended to read an album cover while he stood behind, quiet, expecting. The fact was, Jesse was the wisest of us all. In a rough sort of way, he spoke the truth without any pretense or stupid dreams. He knew what he wanted and how vulnerable I was. He knew the second something bad happened I’d come falling. But I didn’t have to be like that. He didn’t have to be right.
I grabbed a tube of bright red lipstick and turned around so he could watch as I ran it across my lips.
“What’s that for?” he asked, surprised.
“It’s my red flag. I’m protected material now. You can stop insulting me. No more saying how pathetic I am; no more asking me to need you. If you want to hang out, respect the red.”
“God, now I want to kiss you.”
I wiped my mouth on my arm. “Leave, Jesse. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Can’t I crash here? It’s late.”
“No, you can’t.”
He groaned, grabbing his jacket off the chair he’d thrown it on minutes before, and paused before leaving. “Bye, sugar.”
I heard him outside a few minutes later, revving the car before he sped up the hill. Lightning struck, then the rain came, pouring over the roof in heavy sheets, and I could still hear him, pistons firing all the way up Walters Street, fading, fading, deep into the night, until he was gone.
There was nothing to do but hope for minutes to pass as seconds. They were more like hours. I put on a record, grabbed a book and lay down on the bed, and worked hard at being patient. When the record ended, I put on another one. Then another. One after the other, until finally my eyes drifted shut and sleep touched my senses.
I woke to a vision in the gabled window—William, bathed in sunlight—full and complete. The storm had taken a well-timed break. Our eyes met for a long, anticipating moment, and in that moment so much passed between us—more powerful than words, stronger than the earthly inches separating our bodies.
“I missed it,” I whispered finally, sliding one lazy arm above my head with a yawn.
“Only by a few minutes.”
I smiled, “Can you do it again, for me?”
“Nope.”
Sticking out my tongue, I swung my legs over the side of the mattress, and stretched again. “I seriously hate nighttime now.”
“Not as much as me.”
“What happens to you . . . when you fade?”
“I still exist. I can think. I can sense things around me. I can even touch if I concentrate hard enough.”
I remembered the phantom kiss under the gazebo and met his amused eyes. I sauntered over to where he sat and plopped down into his lap without warning. He tightened his arms to catch me before I fell to the floor.
“Whoa. I wasn’t ready for that.”
His lips were too tempting, his breath too sweet, his arms too tingly. I planted a kiss on his mouth and then fell back in a fake faint. And I waited. Quiet, slow, those lips came down to touch upon mine again, tempting everything I had inside my sleep-numbed body. I wrapped my fingers into his hair and gave every ounce of love I had.
“Oh, Emma. We can’t.”
“Oh, yes, we can.”
“It isn’t right. Things aren’t right for this. Please understand.”
I smiled wryly. “Listen, this is my room, and I want another kiss.”
He thought about it, twisting his mouth in concentration. “Just one more?”
“Mm-hmm.”
He lowered his face again, but was interrupted by a knock on the bedroom door.
“Emma?”
It was Mom running late for work, according to the time flashing on my bedside alarm clock.
“Yes?” I called, looking up at William with a frown. He smiled back, too satisfied with the well-timed interruption.
She spoke through the door, much to my relief. “I’m running late. Can you make me a lunch and bring it over to the bank around noon? I’d really appreciate it.”
She made no attempt to come in, of course if she had, she would not have seen my guest. A nice trick, I thought with a slight grin.
“Okay.” My brain clicked in the request. Lunch, twelve, bank. I could do that.
“Oh,” she paused. “And I have some papers for you to look at, about the church.”
I looked at William and saw the spread of worry crossing his face.
“I really would like you to come with me tonight, Emma.”
“Okay Mom. I’ll think about it.” I shook my head to show William I was bluffing. I heard him let out a breath.
We both sat there waiting for her retreat, then he finally spoke, his expression serious. “I’ve been thinking. We need to start setting up a plan before it’s too late. I’d like to speak later. Our usual spot?”
I smiled in response. The corner in the back of the library, our spot. It made flashes of happiness shoot up and down my spine.
William attempted to bring me to a sitting position, but I resisted, still wanting his kiss. He obliged, meeting my lips again in full passion, satisfying me beyond the ability to think. He raised his brow at me and flashed a wide grin. “Is that what you wanted?”
I merely nodded, sitting up speechless.
He got up and walked around the room, eyeing all the stuff that made me. He stopped to pick up a book, read its cover, and then placed it back down, “Hemingway, my favorite.” He looked at the long shelf along the wall. “Look at all these records. It’s almost obsessive.”
“What can I say? Other people do drugs and drink. I do books and records.”
He smiled, pulling out an old fifties disc from my dad’s collection. He placed it on the turntable and set the needle down. “Dance with me.”
I reached to grab his waiting hand, giggling when I was swept into his arms. He steadied me, and music crackled out of the Philips portable—a slow, hypnotic melody about the wind. It held a tone of melancholy that I couldn’t place, but I was happy in his arms, too happy to think.
His body was melting me, drifting me into another place and time. There was no floor, no walls, no roof—just us. When the song ended, he still clung, eyes looking deep into mine, and I could almost hear him say it, it was so close inside. William wouldn’t let go. The needle jumped along the 45, repeating over and over, b
ut he wouldn’t reach out to move it.
“Emma.”
“Yes,” I whispered, ready to break.
“Kiss me again.”
I did, and then threw my arms around his neck the second our lips touched in soft sweetness. He rocked me, swaying to some unheard melody, his hands smoothing over my back with a warm, delicate touch. The shocks sizzled, the cold melted, my lips trembled under his. When he pulled away, it was slow, like pulling a long thread from a knitted sweater of gossamer yarn. My eyes opened in reluctance.
“I wish that I could draw you,” William whispered, “the way you drew me. Right now, with your hair soft and hanging down around your shoulders like that. I only have my mind to store the memory.”
“You won’t have to remember, if you have me forever.”
Those lips twisted in pain. “We both know that can’t happen.”
“I won’t give up believing in it.”
“You have to.”
“I won’t.”
A long moment passed. “If we were able to bring me back to life,” my heart thumped hard and loud when he said this, “we’d have to figure out a way to create my existence—birth certificate, license—all those things. I’d have to find a job. I haven’t worked in a long time. Emma, I haven’t eaten real food, taken showers, changed clothes.” He pulled up a section of fabric from his shirt. “I don’t know how to be human anymore.”
“Maybe that’s why I love you.”
William reached up to trace my chin with a delicate touch. “You deserve more than some useless guy. I’m as good as a bum. And, there’s another thing.” He seemed nervous.
“Yes?”
“I can’t know for sure, but there’s always a risk of . . . of my being brought back to life in the body I was supposed to have. The one I’d have under normal circumstances.”
Was he really worrying about that? “William, I could only love you more. Anyway, forties isn’t that old, really.” I traced his sideburns, eyeing the thick hair bristling out there. “A little gray, some wrinkles. You’d be sexy.”
“I’d be old.”
“Let’s see. Old and amazingly handsome or stuck forever. Hmmm.”
He pulled me into his chest with a strong arm around my waist. “Are you prepared to have me as a real human? There won’t be any turning back, you know.”
I shivered when his lips touched my throat.
“I’ve never wanted anything more in my entire life.”
Another kiss and he pulled away. “Don’t you have to get ready for work?”
“Work?” I breathed, stumbling back. “Yes, work.”
William walked back over to the gable seat, placing his foot up on the sill. “We’ll talk about all of this later.”
His eyes scanned my room one more time and met mine with a handsome glow. When I stepped forward, his body faded through the glass into thin air. I rushed over to see if he was truly gone and let out a giggle for the absurdity of it all. A ghost man in my room, kissing me, disappearing out my window like a half-dead Romeo. How utterly cool.
Running downstairs, I threw a couple of cheese sandwiches into two different bags, along with two apples, and a thermos of hot coffee. I gulped down a steaming cup for myself, chewed up half a banana and headed for the bathroom.
After a quick shower, I pulled my hair into a ballerina bun and slipped on some stretchy flared jeans and a V-neck T-shirt. My clothing supply had become seriously depleted as of late, everything was lying on the bottom of my closet in a big heap. I groaned at the mess, hoping William hadn’t noticed.
Grabbing my purse and big round sunglasses a la Audrey Hepburn, I ran downstairs and grabbed the keys for the Pontiac. A note had been taped to the wall: Emma, can you pick up a prescription for me today at the drugstore? Love, Gran. What was I today? Errand boy? Smiling, I sent out a Yes to her, and watched as she stood up just outside the back door, out in the garden.
Thanks, she sent back, giving a wave.
The Pontiac was in a lousy mood, refusing to wake up when I pumped on the gas. Revving was pretty much impossible, but I wanted to get to the library, and to William, as fast as possible. I had to settle for thirty, but even that was difficult as Walters was all hill going up to Main.
Parking in front of the library, I grabbed the two lunches and threw off my seat belt with gusto. I paused at the entrance, stopping only to take a long breath before opening the thick glass door. There he was in the back corner: all gorgeous daylight, solid mass of black hair and masculine, broad shoulders. He looked up from the book he was reading to fill me with the breathtaking phenomenon of his cerulean eyes.
I resisted the urge to run to him, and headed for the front desk where Ethel already sat reading a fresh paperback.
“You’re late. And why are you still in town?”
“Good morning to you, too.” I grabbed a cart and starting dumping books on it in a hurry.
“With all that running around you did last week, I thought for sure you’d be halfway to Vegas by now. What happened?”
I smiled. “Oh, not much. I just fell in love.”
Ethel threw down her book. “Dammit.”
I left her scowling face and wheeled the wooden cart to the back corner, avoiding looking at him like I always did before. His thumb moved across a page as I passed, lips pulled together in a silent, distracted whistle.
I shelved every book at a slow pace, and with much care for its position and the whole row it belonged to. Hours went by with me still in the same spot, kitty-corner to him sitting just a few feet away. I could feel his presence, and the soft music of his thoughts as he read on and on, a slow and steady rhythm of words. Once in a while, the flow would stall, especially if I came too close, or dropped a book. When I was done, I stood back and took in the sight of his broad back with thick curling hair reaching over the collar of his shirt.
I love you desperately, William Bennett, I allowed my mind to say, before grabbing the cart and pushing it toward fiction.
His leg shot out to block its path. Those eyes looked up at me, tender and deep.
“Come here, fast.”
I fell into his arms.
“Emma, Emma. If I wasn’t dead already, I’d die just being near you. It’s unbearable.”
His mouth met mine in a heated kiss, then he leaned back with a sigh. “What a morning. I’ve been trying to study mind protection and reversal of negativity. Perhaps there’s a way we could sneak into the ceremony and change the outcome for our benefit. Kind of like using sunglasses to allow the sun in, but only as needed.”
“Or like a prism,” I added, brainstorming. “If we filter in their thoughts, and then bend them a little, adding our own positive ones. . . .”
William closed his book. “Brilliant! Yes, we add our own using visualization of my being brought back to a solid form. It could work.” He frowned. “But I don’t like the idea of you being at the eclipse ceremony.”
“If you go, I go.”
He shook his head. “Yes, I realize how stubborn you are.”
I kissed his lips again, letting out a slight cry at the huge shock that burned between us. “Wow.”
He grinned. “I quite liked that. Come here.”
“No problem.” I closed my eyes and waited. Nothing. When I looked up, he had an expression of melancholy on his face.
“What is it, William?”
“I want you to know how happy I am right now. And, if anything happens to me, it was worth it—just to be with you for one second of time.”
“Nothing bad is going to happen, remember? Positive thinking?”
“Right,” he said, smiling shyly. “Now where were we?”
William leaned in and I pulled his face down, unable to wait. The shock was worse this tim
e.
“Maybe it’s my Chapstick,” I said, rubbing my lips together. “It’s acting as a conductor.”
“Mmm. Well, you’d better get back to work, and I,” he picked up his book again, “I have to study.”
“Fine.” I sprung off his lap and resumed with my cart, giving one look back to his sly grin.
Ethel had some new periodicals for me to take care of, so I did that, and then worked on fiction until lunchtime came around. As soon as the clock clicked twelve, I grabbed Mom’s sack and decided to rush out and do that without saying good-bye, but he was waiting outside, walking with me as soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk.
“They’ll be thick as thieves in the bank. The Seekers own most of the stock and Marcus spends much of his day checking on that. Why don’t you let me go in and drop the lunch off on the counter?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know. Won’t Mom think it strange for me to leave it without even saying hi?”
“She might, but I don’t want you near them. Please, Emma.”
I handed him the sack and watched as he crossed the street, swallowing up the steps of the Springvale Savings and Loan with his long legs. He faded through the front entrance, and then faded back out in mere seconds. When he started across the street again, I noticed a car coming from the south, but William didn’t look or hesitate. The car wasn’t going to stop and neither was he. I screamed at the sight of thick metal and chrome passing right through his body in full speed. He halted at the sounds of my distress and then came running.
“Whoa, I’m sorry. How stupid of me!”
“It’s all right,” I choked out, trying to breathe. “Just don’t do that ever again.”
“I won’t, I won’t.” His arms held me tight. After a moment, he pulled me back to search my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get back to the library and do some studying before your break is over.”